Sunday best

Being a chef, when you think about it, is a bizarre existence. In the heat of the kitchen, during a lunch or dinner service, it's easy to forget that, for most people, all you're really doing is cooking food. This tunnel-visioned life tends to make you selfish - particularly when it comes to free time. My wife, Susanna, is saintly in putting up with me and my eccentricities, as well as looking after our two children, but at least I always try to make the most of Sundays - and that includes having a traditional roast lunch. The perfect roast chicken, all golden, glorious, tender and packed with true flavour, along with perfect roast potatoes, is a Holy Grail for many cooks, both professional and amateur. The smell of the roasting bird is almost as important as the flavour - it just so happens that the sense of smell is the most powerful memory jogger, having the power to evoke quite powerful emotions - another brain-to-palate connection.

Roast chicken

Rather than giving a boring, straight- forward recipe for roast chicken, I thought it would be better to list the points that will give you the best results. Before we start, I cannot emphasise strongly enough the benefit of an oven thermometer. You may be surprised at how inaccurate your oven is.

· Choose the best chicken that your budget will allow. The quality of your ingredients play the biggest part in determining the quality of the end result.

· Cut off any extremities such as wing tips, feet and neck. Roughly chop these, and add them to the roasting tray - they will form the base for your sauce. If you can, remove the wishbone, too, as this makes it far easier to carve the cooked bird: lift up the flap of skin covering the neck and, using a small, sharp knife, run the blade along the wishbone in the V-shaped cavity you should then be able to ease it away from the breastbone and carefully remove it.

· Generously season the bird inside and out with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

· If you want, stuff the cavity with a lemon, pierced with a fork and then rolled with pressure on a work-surface, a clove of garlic, and herbs such as thyme, rosemary and tarragon.

· Tie or truss the chicken to keep it compact in shape and to ensure that it cooks evenly.

· Any aromatics - onion, garlic and herbs, say - added to the roasting pan will greatly enhance the quality of your gravy.

· Do not cook the chicken on too high a heat. Armed with a probe or accurate thermometer, I'd normally advocate roasting the chicken at about 65-70C/ 130-140F/gas mark 1/2 until the internal temperature of the meat has risen to 60C, at which point it will be just about cooked through. Then, remove the bird from the oven, increase the heat to the highest setting and pop the bird back in to give it a blast just long enough to brown and crisp the skin.

This approach will give you fantastic results, not least because, cooked at such a low temperature for a long time, the chicken will retain all of its moisture. The problem with this method, however, is that all those precious juices stay inside the bird, and none escape into the pan from which you can make the sauce.

At the restaurant, we get around this by making a separate sauce or roasting juice to accompany the chicken, but at home you're unlikely to want to go to such lengths. Instead, cook the chicken at a slightly higher temperature, 135C/275F/ gas mark 1, until cooked through, and then give it the final blast of heat to brown the skin. At that level of heat, there'll be enough of the bird's juices in the roasting pan to make a gravy.

There are, of course, many other variations of both cooking times and temperatures for roasting a chicken, but I prefer the first approach because, when the internal temperature goes higher than 60-65C, the more residual heat is produced, with the result that the bird will continue cooking even when taken out of the oven.

At higher temperatures, the breast tends to cook at a different rate from the legs, though you can overcome this to some extent by cooking the bird for a third of the time on one side, a third on the other and a final third with the breast facing up. Roast it at lower temperatures, however, and it's unnecessary to turn the bird. As a rough guideline, at 135C a 1.5kg chicken will take roughly two and a half hours to cook - though it is important to note that older ovens are often hotter at the back than at the front, so, if yours is no spring chicken, make sure that it is placed in the oven with the end of the breast toward the back.

· When cooking at lower temperatures, there is less residual heat and so the bird will not need resting. When cooked at 135C or above, however, it will need a rest, during which time the residual heat will finish off the cooking. To do this, place an upturned small bowl on top of a bigger plate and lean the bird against it so that the thinner part of the breast is pointing up. This way, the juices will flow back to the thicker part of the breast and be retained within the bird. Cover with tin foil.

· Place the roasting pan on a high flame, and colour the vegetables and trimmings. Add 300ml of cold water and, as it boils, scrape all off the bits that have stuck to the base of the pan. Turn down the heat to a simmer, and cook for around half an hour to reduce slowly, then pass through a sieve. Reduce again to the desired consistency, then whisk in a knob of cold butter.

Roast potatoes

My children, like most, adore roast potatoes, and never complain when asked to peel them in readiness for Sunday lunch. Apart from using the right potato, it's also important never to salt the cooking water, because this will prevent the potatoes from crisping properly. Also, as with chips, cook them for as long as possible in very gently simmering water. (Of course, some people grill the potatoes towards the end, which does obtain a crunchy result, but it's not really the same. It is common practice, especially in some pubs, shock-horror, to finish off roast potatoes in a deep-fat fryer.)

If, when you cut the potatoes with the flour, they break up a bit, do not worry - those bits are absolutely delicious because they become really crunchy. These quantities serve four (although, in our household, you can never have enough).

1kg potatoes (ideally, use a variety that's good for making chips)

150ml olive oil

4 garlic cloves

1 generous bunch fresh rosemary

1 bunch fresh thyme

1 tbsp plain flour

Salt (for finishing)

Pre-heat the oven to 175C/350F/gas mark 4. Wash and peel the potatoes. Cut them in half or into three, depending on the size of the potato, and leave them under running water for five to 10 minutes. Bring a large pan of unsalted water to the boil and plunge in the potatoes. Cook until soft. Meanwhile, pour the olive oil into a roasting tray that is just large enough to fit all of the potatoes in one layer. Ideally, the oil should be just under 1cm in depth. Put the tray in the pre-heated oven.

Drain the potatoes in a colander and sieve the flour over them. Carefully turn them in the flour so that they do not break up too much, then place them in the heated oil in the roasting tray, together with the cloves of garlic. Turn the potatoes in the oil and return the tray to the oven. For the best result, turn the potatoes every 20 minutes. After half an hour, add the herbs. The potatoes should take about 90 minutes to cook, by which time they should be golden brown.

Drain the potatoes on kitchen towel, season with salt and serve. Your patience will be rewarded.

Buttered cabbage

This recipe is so simple: no salted, boiling water, no blanching, no reheating, no horrid stewed mush. These quantities won't serve more than four as a garnish because, once cooked, a cabbage doesn't go very far.

1 large white cabbage or 2 medium Savoy cabbages

150g unsalted butter

Salt and pepper

Remove the outer leaves of the cabbage - that is, the first three layers if you're using a Savoy, and the first two if it is a white cabbage. This may seem wasteful, but the outer leaves are tough and not as sweet. Cut off the base of the cabbage and carefully pull off the leaves. You may need to trim a little more from the base after every few layers or so, to enable you to remove the leaves whole. Carefully cut out the spine of each leaf, then cut the leaves into pieces.

In a stainless-steel pan for which you have a lid, melt the butter over a medium heat. When the butter begins to sizzle but before it takes on any colour, add the cabbage. Season with salt and pepper, stir to combine with the butter and cover the pan. It will take five to 10 minutes to cook, depending on the type and age of the cabbage, and on how big the pieces are. So, you'll need to keep an eye on it.

The cabbage will become wonderfully sweet and retain its vibrant green colour. It is vital, however, that you shake the pan every couple of minutes, to prevent the cabbage from catching on the bottom. The steam produced, along with thebutter, will cook the cabbage. Once cooked, adjust the seasoning accordingly